Letters To Freddie
by Tahlia Mckinnon
Summary: post his death, the gang send letters to freddie, explaining their emotions and exploting the actions they take in trying to deal with life without him.
1. Burden

**This is my first fanfic EVER, so i'd really appreciate feeback, advice and reviews - no matter how critical. One thing though, I know the reactions may not be realistic, or how you as readers may have imagined, but this is _my _interpretation of where i think SKINS would've have taken things next. Thankyou for reading (:**

**Cook, the one who adored him.**

I thought it would be easy. I'd had a lifetime of breaking promises, breaking hearts, breaking friendships.

But breaking a _person. _Breaking _her. _Fuck me, Freds. I was naïve to think such a thing.

The way she'd sat bolt upright in her bed. The way her eyes dilated with horror. The way she looked at me with such venom for telling her the one thing she never wanted to hear. That you were gone, and never coming back.

That you were…

She slapped me then, said I was talking bullshit, was talking sick. And I wanted more than anything to throw my head back, let out a fucking guffaw, punch her on the arm and ask her where her sense of humour had gone. I wanted more than anything, Freds, to take her by the hand and lead her downstairs, where you'd be waiting for her, with some fucking dodgy garage flowers and that trademark sheepish expression on your 'andsome little face.

But I couldn't. All I could do was sit there and fight back the already visible tears. Watch her watch me.

Watch Effy die inside. Watch her charge from the room, watch her run from her house and into the night.

Watch her sink to her knees on her pathway and shake uncontrollably.

I didn't know what to do with myself. I tried to think of the situation in reverse. If that was me, in that bloodied body bag - how would you comfort her, how would you comfort each other if that was me?

I wondered if you'd even need comforting at all. You'd probably feel relief more than anything else. A burden lifted. I'm always a burden, ain't I? And now I carry your burden, too.

I just sat and watched her cry. I watched the strongest person I knew undo herself, and unstitch the years of unpenetrated protection she had wound around herself. It was like watching a stranger, man. Effy's heart didn't break, she said so herself. Effy had episodes, had crazy fits, had bad spells. Effy did psycho. Effy did cold. Effy did cool.

She didn't do love.

But she did with you. She only ever broke for _you._

Breaking a person isn't easy, Freds. But letting _yourself_ break, that's even fucking harder.

She really _is _the strongest person I know.


	2. Existing

**Effy, the one who needed him. **

The news sunk in straight away, of course. Cook doesn't fuck around, and neither do I.

The truth gripped us tighter, quicker than anybody else. While they were only just catching up, we were trying to move on.

And I guess this is what it feels like.

The feeling I'd only ever read about in Shakespeare, watched my parents go through, saw my brother's girlfriend succumb to. The agonising, torturing, numbing feeling of losing the one person who knew you the most. Who understood you the most. Who you wanted the most. The _one _person that you _needed_.

To sleep. To breathe. To survive.

Fuck you, Freddie. You lied to me. You told me you'd take care of me.

Maybe you should have taken more care of yourself. You don't negotiate with lunatics, Freddie. How could you have been so reckless? So fucking stupid?

The night you… The night Cook told me, all I could think about was what was going through your mind as that baseball bat crucified your body. As it broke your face. The face that lit up when I looked into it, the face that overwhelmed me with sudden rushes of ecstasy, more than any pill I've ever popped. The face that didn't care if I hated everything, if I went insane, if I cut myself. The face that I imprinted in my mind, that I revert to on the many sleepless nights of screaming. The face I would give my life to, to hold between my fingertips, just one more time.

All I could think about was whether you felt the agony that I felt right then. Whether your chest had caved in the same as mine. Whether all you could think about was our last words to each other.

Whether you knew you were going to die.

Because _I_ knew _I_ was. I knew I was dying away, right there.

Cook was almost unrecognisable, almost laughable. He sat there, like a moron. Like an immovable object, glued to my pathway. He didn't respond to my shrieking, he didn't flinch when I punched him, he didn't cry when I did.

He just sat. He just _existed. _

Because this isn't life anymore, Freddie. Neither of us can _live _without you. We pass our days _being_, we pass our days because we have to.

'Life goes on'? No. Bullshit. Life stays stuck in the moment. Resonates in those torturous seconds when your world caved in. Everything else is blurred and hazy, because it doesn't matter.

Nothing matters anymore.


	3. Guilt

**Cook, the one who adored him. **

"Cook," she'd whispered, as the sun had started to rise. The sky was that strange pale orange, the colour of your eyes.

We'd sat there for hours. Me, suffocating. Effy, screaming.

"Cook. Let's go." She'd pulled me up by my hand, gripped it tightly as she led me away, and down the street. I'd felt guilty for touching her, because she was _your_ girl, Freds. I'd felt guilty for fucking holding her _hand_, man.

Because despite everything, through all the shit, I love her. Not as much as you did. Not as much as I love _you. _

But I still love her.

I knew where she was taking me. The one place where we'd feel you, and pretend we could hear your dopey laughter, and imagine you sitting in your chair, choking on a joint, sharing it with us. The place, where only hours before, all of us had drank to you, danced around to fucking Kylie Minogue, wished you'd have been there to drink and dance with us - not knowing that you never would again.

The shed.

_Our _shed.

The picture still hung on the wall, of the three of us. Me, you and JJ. The three musketeers.

And we'd slipped inside the frame a tiny picture of our Eff. Because she was a part of us now. Now and forever. She'd torn us all apart, but then one by one, had brought as all running back together.

That's when I lost it, Freds. Looking at that stupid fucking picture. I couldn't take it anymore. I punched the wall until my already bloodied knuckles had perforated. I punched the wall harder than I'd punched that fucking Foster's face. I punched, imagining the walls of the shed were you. In some twisted way, I guess they were. I punched you for being such a dick, I punched you for being so stupid. I punched you for trying to fight her battles for her.

Because you weren't strong enough, man. Only somebody as fucked up as me could've handled her twisted shit. Only _I_ could push her out of the road of oncoming cars, just in time. You couldn't push away her obstacles, Freddie. You bowed down to them.

Something I'd _never_ do.

Effy didn't stop me. She just watched me, like I'd watched her thrash around. She waited until _I'd _sank to _my _knees, sitting beside me, as I'd sobbed like a right pussy. We're two of the same. Effy and me. You couldn't deal with her shit, but I can. Because our shit's the _same_.

She'd waited for the perfect moment, the point where I felt like I was burning in some pissing down acid rain. Like I was melting. She'd shielded me. She wrapped her arms around me, and her skin against mine sent us into a frenzy. She pressed her lips to my face, I pressed my lips to hers. Her hands slid underneath my shirt, lifting it over my head, then peeling her pyjamas away too, still kissing me, touching me, never once breaking contact. I pushed her onto her back, my body on top of hers. Not crushing her in the impatient, eager, lustful way it used to.

But grazing her softly, skin against skin, mouth against mouth, hands against hands.

I undid my trousers, she pushed down her shorts. And it felt … powerful. It wasn't a fuck, a shag. It wasn't just sex. It was unexplainable, Freddie. I guess we did it like you two used to. The way I'd always wanted to.

Not just with her, but with anybody. Not out of desperation, not with an objective, but simply _out of love_.

Fuck me, I'm sounding right soft now, eh?

No, I'm not ashamed anymore. Effy saw through the act, she knew what I really needed. She touched me right, she kissed me right, she didn't just want the job done. Not that night.

It was different to the other times. All those quickies, with the sweat, and the noise. It was sort of magic. Not JJ's ridiculous 'abra cadabraaaa' shit, but real. Yeah, it felt real. For once in my life it was because somebody wanted to have me.

Not because I was up for it, not because there was nothing else to do, but _out of love_.

And I didn't feel guilty anymore. Neither of us did.

Because all we had left of you, was each other. And instead of fighting it, we took it by the horns.

We took it by the horns, and fucking ran with it.

We ran for _you. _


	4. Sickness

**Effy, the one who needed him.**

I thought of you the whole time. And if I closed my eyes, and concentrated hard enough, Cook's groans sounded like yours, Cook's fingers felt like yours, Cook's mouth kissed me like yours did.

Maybe that was sick. Maybe I _am _sick. That's hardly a revelation.

But I know Cook, and I know somewhere inside of him he was thinking of you too. We're _both _sick.

I remember, in his last year of high school, Tony wrote, directed and played the lead in a play for his History Class performance. I remember he trawled the internet for days, and stumbled across this Latin proverb that particularly excited him.

_In time of sickness, the soul collects itself anew. _

Maybe Tony found that for a reason. Maybe I _remembered_ that for a reason.

Considering our pasts and tragedies, that Latin proverb is the fucking story of our lives.

Cook had slept for the few hours that I stayed in the shed. I watched him, his chest rising and falling. Then, I collected my thoughts, slipped back into my pyjamas, kissed him on the earlobe, and left.

I knew where I intended to go. There were a few specific people that I really needed to be around, really needed to talk to. And they weren't here in Bristol.

I needed some answers, Freddie. I needed shoulders to cry on. I needed people that hadn't known you, couldn't judge you, didn't have their own memories. I needed, selfish as it sounds, to deal with my _own _grief - not sit around and indulge in others'.

But before I set off, there was one thing I had to do. One more door I had to knock on.

"Effy?" Naomi questioned me sleepily, running her hands through her tousled blonde hair . "It's six o'clock in the morning?"

"I need you to do something for me, Naomi. And it's very, _very _important."

The clouds from her grey eyes cleared, replaced with a burning curiosity. They observed me properly, taking everything in. The purple bags under my eyes, the mascara streaking across my face, the blood of Cook's knuckles plastered over my pyjamas. And she understood. A light bulb shone over her light bulb hair. "Something's wrong."

"Freddie's dead." I don't sweeten things up, you know that Freddie. I say it how it is. And as much as the words burned through my throat like a cancer as I spoke them, they were the truth. And the truth, I knew, Naomi could handle. She was used to it.

She was used to it, because she was used to Cook. And he doesn't sweeten things up either.

"Never one for subtlety," she breathed, blinking a lot. She stayed silent for a while, not entirely sure what to say. She was never close to Freddie, but she was incredibly close to Cook. In a different way than I was. In a stronger way, probably. "How are you?"

"I don't want you to give a shit about me, Naomi," I had replied shortly. "I need to you give a shit about Cook."

"Right…"

"Cook found him."

"Shit," she gasped, finally clocking on. Her eyes then began to dance with excruciating fire. "Oh fuck. How's Cook?"

"I spent the night with him. At the shed." She nodded at me slowly, knowing what that meant, failing miserably to stop judgement from sweeping across her face. "We needed each other." Like _that's _an explanation to Injustice's right hand man. "I don't expect you to understand."

"I'll take care of him, Effy." She'd smiled gently, but it hadn't reached her eyes. I knew she was panicking.

I knew she was panicking about Cook. I knew she was panicking about watching him fall apart. I knew she was panicking about how to tell the others.

But I also knew that Naomi Campbell was strong enough. Stronger than me, in that sense.

I half smiled back, then turned around and walked away.

"Running away again?" she called after me mockingly, folding her arms with a grin.

"It's what I do best." _That_ was a truth she didn't _need _to handle. She was already accustomed. Everybody was.

My Mother, Anthea, was accustomed to that little hurdle too. She just struggled more at jumping over it. I left her a note explaining the 'where's and whys' at the foot of her bed as she slept off her drunken stupor. She'd waited up for me the previous night, waiting for me to return from the shed party. With all the waiting and the worrying that I'd brought her since my latest episodes - it didn't surprise me that she'd slept through the shrieks, _my_ shrieks, that had taken place on our doorstep. What did surprise me, is that neither of my neighbours had phoned the police. Then maybe Cook and I would be running away _together. _

On the train, I tried to stop thinking about Cook. I tried to stop thinking about him waking up in an empty shed. I tried to stop thinking about how much he'd hate me for leaving him behind again, leaving him to pick up the pieces that _I _had scattered everywhere.

I tried to stop thinking about how everything was my fault.

Instead, I thought more about sickness. I thought about what you'd say, what you'd say about _my _sickness. And I remembered, suddenly, a passage from an Anne Rice book that Tony had lent to me once.

_Life has no meaning anymore does it?  
The wine has no taste, the food sickens you, there seems no reason for any of it, does there?  
But what if I could give it back to you.  
Pluck out the pain and give you another life, one you could never imagine, and it would be for all __**sickness **__and death could never touch you again.  
Don't be afraid, I'm going to give you the choice  
I, never, had. _

That's exactly what you would say, isn't it Freddie? You, and your ridiculously forgiving, nurturing habits. And old habits die hard, just like you did.

Maybe Tony gave me that book for a reason. Maybe I _remembered _that for a reason.

It was then, I realised, that I needed to be with my brother even more than I'd thought.


	5. Laughter

**Well, I know this has been way overdue. And I'm really hoping this chapter doesn't dissappoint, as I've had such amazing reviews from you generous lot so far. As I stated when I started this fic, this is MY interpretation of how the characters would behave and react in light of the situation. I know first hand that death changes people. Sometimes, it makes them perform the unthinkable. Other times, somebody who was so together can find themselves falling apart, and vice versa. I've read some fics that portray Naomi as somebody who could cope, and be there to pick up the pieces for everybody. As a protector. Well, this is my personal view of how she'd react. Hope you guys enjoy. Reviews are always very much appreciated. Sorry I took so long to update, lemme know if it was worth the wait :/ x

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**Naomi, the one who sussed him out.**

I'd always been so quick to judge Effy.  
The way she toyed with you, toyed with Cook, toyed with Katie.

But really, Effy was just a little girl with a heart too big to hold.  
**She was just a little girl, who had loved, and lost, and been terrified in between. **

I never fully understood that, until I met Sophia, and that whole fiasco started.  
I was a girl who loved, and was terrified. And just like Effy, I fought, and I hurt, I inflicted and I pushed away.

And I lost.

**I lost Emily. I lost myself. And then I lost the fight. **

But despite my observations, and conclusions, and sudden understandings, I couldn't help but cringe when Effy told me about Cook and the shed. It wasn't fair on you, Freddie. And it wasn't exactly fair on Cook and Effy either. But then I starting thinking about if that had been Emily. My Emily. My Person.  
Chances are I would have fucked Cook too.

Cook seems to possess this ability. He heals. He absorbs some of your pain, feels it, and carries it with him, mixed in with his own self-loathing and shaky past.

Maybe that's why Cook has been used all of his life. Abused for his gift. But what about Cook's pain? I would have to return the favour sometime.

And that frightened me, Freddie. That was usually _your_ duty.  
**See, you and me, we know all about catching others when they fall.**  
But what if I was the one that fell this time?

Effy expected me to be strong. Strong for her, strong for Cook, strong for all of us.  
Why Freddie? Because we never sat down and had a gritty heart to fucking heart?  
I still cared for you. I still cried myself to sleep over the news.  
I still felt fucking grief.

And Effy expected me to hold it all together. That wasn't fair either.  
And I guess that's why I'd always been so quick to judge her. She didn't believe in fair.

So, I went searching for the one person I thought that did.

* * *

"When Freddie laughs, Cook cries. When Cook cries, Effy smirks. When Effy smirks, Freddie cries. When Freddie cries, Cook smirks. When Cook smirks, Effy cries. When Effy cries, Freddie smirks. When Freddie smirks, Cook laughs. When Cook laughs, Effy laughs. When Effy laughs, Freddie laughs. When Freddie laughs, Cook cries - and the vicious circle commences," JJ babbled, blowing on his tea and staring into it's murky body.

"JJ," I replied, with all the softness I could muster. "I think that cycle can seize now."

He shook his head dismissively, still struggling to bring his eyes to mine. "No, you just don't understand Naomi. It's not all bubble and squeak, it's not like you and Emily. You always end up victorious, overcoming your demons. But this - It's deeper, darker, dangerous, destructive, delusional, disastrous, de -"

"JJ," I repeated, tentatively placing my hand over his.

"Locked on?" he mumbled.

"Something like that."

And I had started to laugh. An action which has since exasperated me. In light of the situation, laughter may have been the best medicine, but there was definitely no cure, Freddie. Laughter wouldn't fill your absence. Laughter wouldn't stitch together the gaping wounds gouging into your friends' hearts.

**Laughter wouldn't save us now. **

"Why are you here, Naomi?" JJ continued. "It's just that, Albert will need feeding soon…"

"This won't take long," I swallowed, eyes welling.

"Naomi?" It was JJ's turn to timidly touch.

"You're right JJ, it's not all bubble and squeak," I breathed, voice wobbling.

"Whatever's the matter?" His inquisitive expression, blushing apple cheeks, kind eyes - they sent me over the edge, Freddie. I thought of the insane amounts of love and admiration this boy had for you. And what would happen, where would it go after I broke the news? It would turn on him, swallow him whole, shatter his existence.

So I lied. I'd become quite accustomed with lies, Freds. That year, I'd managed to lie to the person I love the most.  
But more importantly, I'd lied to myself. And that's how you know you've learned the art of deception.  
**Me and you, Freds. We know all about lying to ourselves. **

"I'm just - I'm just worried about Cook," I sniffled, kicking myself inside. And come to think of it, it wasn't a lie. Just a diversion.

"Hah," JJ snorted, shaking his head. "Why worry? The only person who should worry about Cook, is Cook. And he does a bloody good job of that."  
Now, _THAT_ was a lie.

"Someday, things will be okay again," I replied, staring at him intensely. "Someday, JJ, you and Cook - you'll sort things out."

"Naomi, I don't -"

"Someday, JJ," I interrupted, "you're going to have to."

He opened and closed his jaw, and I left him to wallow in his silence.

See, I couldn't do it Freddie. I couldn't break it to JJ. And I certainly couldn't take care of Cook.

Effy's made many mistakes, we both know that.  
But trusting me to bear the burden, that was her biggest mistake so far.

And so it was that I found the medicine.  
I cured my sickness.  
I followed Effy's footsteps.  
Abolished my dignity.

**And I ran. Lying to myself that they'd find a way to cope. **


End file.
